This invention relates to data security.
The ability to share data over the cloud or Internet has allowed users to collaborate and communicate in a manner that could not have been contemplated until very recently. The convenience of sharing data has made state-of-the-art data distribution and sharing services indispensable in many scenarios ranging from media, business, education, government, social applications and more. Today, anyone with a handheld mobile phone can instantly share their vacation photos with distant friends and family. Coworkers separated by thousands of kilometers can simultaneously edit the same file, and schools can upload the latest edition of a textbook and make a single digital copy available to hundreds of students, saving printing and paper costs.
However, together with the benefits of sharing information is the downside of a loss to privacy. Data stored publicly on the ‘cloud’ is vulnerable to intrusions, hackers, and espionage, exposing users to privacy violations, blackmail, and threats that were never imaginable in the past. Moreover, the interconnectedness facilitated by the Internet has greatly exacerbated the damage caused by privacy breaches by enabling leaked information to spread in mere seconds to millions of people across the world.
This has come to public attention over the last few years as children having come of age with the Internet discover that their adolescence has left digital footprints for college admissions staff and potential employers to scrutinize. Recent highly publicized scandals have spotlighted the growing problem of intrusions into data storage platforms and the resulting exposure of private data.
When data sharing over the cloud was first implemented, a common defense to counter privacy concerns was that the sheer quantity of available data protected users from having their data divulged; the pile of data was so deep, it would be impossible to mine any individual's personal information. However, this argument failed to account for the fact that data stored on the cloud is tagged and indexed. Rather than a random heap, the data is highly mapped and networked, and therefore accessible using simple search techniques.
Some social media platforms try to overcome these issues by allowing users to create closed or private circles of ‘friends’ for sharing data. However, this requires all the interacting friends to join that particular social media platform, something they are not always willing to do. Furthermore, users' privacy is at the mercy of any given platform's security measures, and as these platforms become bigger and draw more users, their attraction increases as targets for attacks.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the figures.